


Always the Bridesmaid

by bluenebulae



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), F/M, Fluff, Past Katara/Jet - Freeform, Wedding Date AU, Zutara Week, Zutara Week 2020, day 6: affirm, fluffy fluffy fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25640017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluenebulae/pseuds/bluenebulae
Summary: Katara’s not going to let her ex ruin Sokka and Suki’s wedding for her – and neither is her blind date, if he has anything to say about it.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), background Sokka/Suki
Comments: 41
Kudos: 433
Collections: Zutara Week 2020





	Always the Bridesmaid

It’s not even noon and Katara’s already wishing this day is over.

Her headache had sprung up nearly the moment she’d entered the building, stepping from the serenity of her car into a riot of tulle and jewel-toned decorations. She’d picked many of them herself with Suki, spending hours with their heads pressed together over binders spread across Sokka and Suki’s kitchen table, giggling over ridiculous names for color swatches. It makes Katara smile – at least for a moment – to remember how excited she had been for this, how excited she _should_ still be. Her brother’s wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and when the bride is someone as far out of his league as Suki is, Katara knows she should be over the moon.

And she is. She really is, and she loves Sokka and Suki like nothing else. And yet she can’t stop the headache pulsing at her temples, the constant pressure behind her eyes.

Katara sighs and squares her shoulders before heading up the stairs to the bridal suite. She’s _not_ going to be the one to make this day anything less than perfect for them.

The place Suki and Sokka had picked out is a gorgeous estate an hour from the heart of the city, more space than Katara has seen since college inside one building. She nearly gets lost making her way back to the dressing room; her arms are piled high with bridesmaid’s robes and boxes, and she’s watching her feet to make sure she doesn’t trip on one of the hems when it happens. She smacks into something, _hard_ , and stumbles back, dropping the boxes all over the floor.

 _Great_ , she thinks. _Just wonderful_. 

“Hey.”

Katara looks up from where she’d automatically bent down to start gathering the fallen wedding gear. She’d assumed she ran into a wall, preoccupied as she was, but the hallway is straight and clear – clear except for a man standing directly in front of her, his head cocked slightly to one side. His eyes are a startlingly bright shade of amber.

“Shit,” Katara says, and then blushes. “I’m – sorry. Sorry about that.”

“It’s no problem,” the guy says, and bends down. Up close, she can see just how handsome he is, in a sharp, striking way, all jet-black hair and high cheekbones. One of his eyes is ringed with rough red scar tissue, but he makes it work somehow, just seeming all the more mysterious. Katara blushes harder, realizing she’s still wearing an old sweatshirt and no bra and absolutely zero makeup. She must look like a total slob next to his casual shirtsleeves.

“You’re here for Suki and Sokka?”

She nods distractedly, trying as hard as she can not to look at the man’s face again so he doesn’t see her dark circles. “I’m running late, and I wasn’t watching where I was going. I’m seriously so, so sorry.”

“Hey, it’s really not an issue. Don’t worry about it.” He hands her an armful of slippery satin – the bridesmaids’ robes – and if she wasn’t sure before, Katara _knows_ her face is about the color of an overripe plum now.

“I better go find her,” Katara mumbles, and stands. The man is still extending an arm toward her, as if he wants to help her carry the stuff, but Katara _really_ just cannot deal with someone like him right now when her sanity is already teetering on the brink of a very tall cliff. “Thanks,” she calls over her shoulder as she bustles off.

It’s only when she gets to the room where Suki, Toph, Ty Lee and Jin are already gathered that she realizes she hadn’t thought to ask the man his name.

She means to ask Suki, she does, but the moment she enters the dressing room she’s engulfed in a cloud of perfume and babble, words shooting from Ty Lee’s mouth at a hundred miles a minute: “ _Katara_! Oh my gosh I was worried you got lost – are those the robes? Let me see! _Oooh_ , so pretty, Jin look at this – “

“Thank god you’re here,” Toph groans.

Katara dumps the rest of the boxes onto an empty chair and surveys the room. Toph is sprawled across a couch with a glass of champagne in one hand, looking wholly unenthusiastic about the entire affair; Jin and Ty Lee are clustered in a corner, sorting through bags of makeup and jewelry. Katara’s eyes almost skip over Suki entirely until she catches her friend’s gaze in the mirror’s reflection. For the first time all morning, Katara smiles.

She rushes over and envelops Suki in a sideways hug. “You look beautiful.”

Suki laughs, her hands running over Katara’s arms. “They’ve barely even started yet. I’m so glad I only have to do this once in my life.”

“That’s what you think,” Toph yells from across the room.

“Shut it, Toph,” Katara answers. Then, to Suki, “what can I help with?”

“You can get yourself a drink and you can sit your ass down and suffer through the makeup team with me. I think the guys are already here. If we’re ready early, I’ll go introduce you to Zuko.”

“Oh, god. Right.”

Katara hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but the whole blind wedding date thing had fallen off the list of things she had the mental capacity to care about very quickly. It’s not like she’s embarrassed, per se – Aang had offered to do it, but after their thing in college, Katara thought it might be too weird – and it’s just for one evening. When Suki had suggested her old friend from high school, Katara had jumped at the idea, grateful to put it out of her mind.

She’d meant to meet up with him before the wedding, just so the day itself wouldn’t be awkward, but time had a way of slipping away from her, and now they’re here and she and the mysterious guy – Zuko – had exchanged more than a handful of text messages, but she still has no clue what he looks like.

Katara slips into the chair beside Suki, reaching gratefully for the champagne flute that Jin offers her. She’s going to need everything she can get to calm her nerves at this point.

The texting with Zuko over the topic of Sokka’s bachelor party had helped, at least. Katara had been skeptical about the idea of having a blind date to her brother’s own wedding, but it isn’t _her_ fault that Jet had picked the worst possible time to cheat on her, and the thought of facing nosy Great-Aunt Hama without the buffer of a date she could at least pretend to be serious about is exhausting. Besides, Zuko had been surprisingly witty in their text exchanges. And he’d asked her for a picture of the bridesmaid dresses so he could match his tie to the fabric. Katara could never imagine Jet doing that in a thousand years.

She sighs deeply and takes a swig of champagne. _It will be good,_ she repeats to herself, her mantra of the past few weeks. _The wedding will be good_.

“Is everything okay?” Suki asks.

Katara startles out of her fugue. June, the makeup artist, is standing over them, her hands tangled up in Suki’s hair, but Suki is staring only at Katara.

She feels selfish all of a sudden. This is Suki and Sokka’s day, and she didn’t need to be dragging her baggage all over the nice, plush carpet. Katara summons up the biggest smile she can find, and in doing so, finds it lifts her mood just enough.

“Of course,” she answers. “I just want to check on the caterers before we all go outside. It would be bad if they forgot the vegetarian option for Aang.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Katara,” Suki sighs.

By the time June is done with her makeup and hair, Katara is finally feeling a little more at ease about the whole thing, the headiness of the perfume and champagne and riot of pastel colors around her helping to calm her nerves. She slips on her bridesmaid dress before turning to leave the room, her mind already running through a checklist of a hundred things to do before the ceremony, when Suki rises from her chair.

“Aang texted me that the guys are here. Come on, let’s go find Zuko.”

“Don’t you have other things to—”

“Nope,” says Suki brightly. “Now.”

Ty Lee follows them out, bubbling over with excitement, and the swooping dread returns to Katara’s stomach. She’s not worried about meeting him, it’s just for one night, but—

“Oh.”

The man from before is standing in the hallway outside the bridal suite, caught like a deer in the headlights only a few steps from bumping into Katara. Katara smiles at him. He’s got a full suit on now, and the boyish handsome air he’d had about him before had transformed into something sharp and captivating.

“Hi,” she says. “We should stop running into each other like this.”

He clears his throat. “Uh, hey. You look – great.”

“You already met?” Suki asks in confusion.

“Earlier,” Katara says, at the same time the man says “I kind of knocked her over this morning.”

“You didn’t—”

“Great!” Suki beams. “That’s easy, then. Katara, Zuko. Zuko, Katara.”

 _Oh_.

Katara appraises the man with new eyes. If possible, he’s even more intriguing now, a crooked smile gracing his lips. The tie around his neck is the exact same shade of forest green as her dress.

“Hi, Katara,” Zuko says, and sticks out his hand.

Katara laughs. It’s an awkward motion, sure, but there’s something irresistibly charming about it, too, his nervousness at odds with his sleek mien. When she takes his hand, it’s rough, but warm.

“We should leave them to it,” Ty Lee says behind Katara. “Suki, you’ve still got to put your dress on! We only have an hour.”

A door shuts behind them in a muffled flurry of giggles, and even though Katara doesn’t turn around to look, she can tell they’re alone now.

Katara is still holding Zuko’s hand, even though she’d stopped shaking it long moments ago. She drops it. Again, she feels the heat rising in her cheeks, and internally, she rolls her eyes at herself.

“Thank you again for doing this,” she says. “I don’t know how much Suki told you about…everything, but it’s a really huge favor to me. I’m grateful.”

“It’s really not a problem,” says Zuko. “Honestly, I don’t know many people here besides Suki and Ty Lee. It’ll be nice to have y – someone. To have someone to talk to.”

She giggles again, a nervous reaction, and wonders what the hell is wrong with herself.

“I have a couple things I have to check on before the ceremony. I’ll have to sneak off, if you don’t mind – “

“I can help.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Is anyone else going to be there if you drop a box of table decorations?”

“That was _one time_ ,” Katara insists, but rather than being annoyed, she finds herself relieved by his easy humor. Besides, the list of things left to do running through her head is a mile long and she hasn’t even seen Sokka yet. Maybe an extra set of hands would be nice.

Zuko trails her from the kitchen to the main hall to the backyard, never too close and not overly talkative, but always there when Katara needs a second opinion on the canapes or the flower arrangement. He lets pieces of himself slip out as he does so – he and Ty Lee had gone to high school with Suki, along with his sister, who is Katara’s age; he lives on the other side of the city from her ( _the expensive part_ , Katara can’t help but think, though she finds herself wholly unsurprised); he’d just moved back after a long time away and doesn’t know many people in town besides his sister’s friends. Katara surprises even herself with her offer to bring him along next time she and Toph and Aang and Sokka have their weekly movie nights.

 _Not a date_ , she tells herself. Just like this isn’t one, either.

He’s attentive, though, and charming to boot. As he and Katara talk, she finds herself wondering more and more about him – what his family is like, where he’d moved back from. Why he hadn’t brought a date himself.

“So,” he says finally as they’re adjusting table number plaques by the entrance, “what about you, Katara? What’s your story?”

“My story? That’s a big question.” She laughs to cover up her nerves.

“I just meant that you’re kind and sociable and – well.” Zuko clears his throat. “And yet you’re having to settle for me as a date.”

“Settle for _you_?” She rolls her eyes as she switches Grandpa Pakku away from the table with Great-Aunt Hama. The last thing this wedding needs is _that_ screaming match again.

“This is definitely not me settling, Zuko. It’s just a very kind favor from you. There was a…circumstance.”

She doesn’t want to talk about it – really, she doesn’t. She’d been hoping to keep it off her mind for the whole day. But Zuko is such a good listener and he’s standing there, leaning against the table with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows looking like a magazine model with the full brunt of his intense attention all on her, and Katara feels the words spilling from her mouth before she can even think about it.

“I found out three weeks ago that my boyfriend was cheating on me. We’d been together two years. By the time the dust settled, everyone already had a date for the wedding, and I’m the maid of honor, it’s not like I could just come _alone_ , and I know Aang would’ve gone with me if I had asked him but we kind of had a thing in college and it just would have been too weird, and then Suki mentioned you and I just wanted to get my mind off of it so I said yes and here we are.” She shrugs and studiously avoids Zuko’s eyes.

“Hey.”

She feels gentle pressure on her wrist and looks up. Zuko is staring down at her, but his expression isn’t the same exhausted pity that everyone else has been wearing around Katara for weeks now. It’s concern, yes, but tempered with compassion and what seems to be a little anger, a heady combination that makes Katara feel faint for a moment.

“It’s his loss,” Zuko says. “I don’t know why anyone would cheat on someone like you, Katara. Not that it’s ever right, but especially not someone like you.”

 _Someone like you_. She’s not quite sure what it means, but it sends sparks fizzing through her bloodstream all the same.

She opens her mouth to respond, but at that moment a commotion breaks out at the other end of the long hallway, footsteps skidding across marble, and moments later she’s got an armful of Sokka and all the thoughts of Jet and Zuko’s unfairly gorgeous eyes leave her head. It hits her: her brother is getting married. _Sokka_.

“Hi,” she says, and nestles her chin into Sokka’s shoulder, trying her hardest not to rub makeup all over his suit jacket.

“Can you believe this?” Aang calls out from behind Sokka’s back. “This place is _awesome_!”

Sokka pulls back, but keeps one arm around Katara’s shoulders, a comforting weight. “You met Zuko! Great. I’m sure he’ll be good company while we do the thing.”

“The thing.” Katara smirks as Sokka flaps his hand.

“You know. The vows and the dancing and – “ he breaks off and waggles his eyebrows. Katara mimes disgust.

“Okay, that’s my cue to go find the girls. Good luck.” She presses a kiss to Sokka’s cheek. “You remember the words?”

“Oh my _god_ , Katara,” he sighs, and she laughs before turning to Zuko. “I’ll catch up with you after the ceremony, okay? Thank you again for all the help.”

“Of course.” Zuko catches her hand before Katara can slip away and squeezes her fingers, and somehow, it’s the most reassuring thing she’s felt all day.

The ceremony itself is a blur – partly because of how worried Katara is the whole time that something is going to go wrong, and partly because of the tears clinging to her lashes the whole time. It’s a beautiful blur, though, the sun going down over the treetops just as Suki and Sokka say “I do,” and Katara catches her father’s eye in the front row. He winks at her. He’s been crying, too, she can see, and it just makes her sob harder, wishing her mom could have seen this moment, but they’re good sobs; cathartic.

When she opens her eyes again, they land on Zuko. He’s not looking at Suki and Sokka. He’s watching her.

Afterwards, when they’re all milling about the garden under twinkling strands of lights, Zuko finds Katara again, catching her elbow. She spins around from where she’d been deep in conversation with Toph.

“One part down,” he says.

“That was the hard part, anyway,” she answers with a grin. “Suki can’t get out now even if she tries.”

“This your date?” Toph asks. Katara knows she can’t see Zuko, but she seems to be sizing him up in that way only Toph can do. After a minute, she nods, satisfied. “I’m gonna go find Aang and see if he can get me something stronger than this sparkly stuff.”

She disappears, and then it’s just Zuko and Katara in the midst of the crowd, swept along as the grand doors to the mansion swing open. Katara reaches for his hand so she doesn’t lose him in the crush. For the first time, she notices just how warm his skin is.

They reunite with the rest of Katara’s friends at dinner. Aang and Toph have procured something suspiciously amber-colored in their wineglasses and are cracking up at anything that anyone does; Ty Lee and Jin are chattering away, Haru and Teo looking hopelessly lost in the conversation. When Zuko pulls out Katara’s seat, though, Ty Lee looks up and grins.

“There you two are! We’d just been wondering where you snuck off to.”

“We didn’t sneak off anywhere,” Zuko splutters, and there goes Katara’s stupid uncontrollable blush again, spreading down her neck and clashing with her forest green dress.

“Hm,” Ty Lee says, arching an eyebrow, and Aang and Toph start cackling even louder. Apparently, it was too much for Katara to wish her friends could be civil for even a few minutes.

When the doors open again, though, they all fall silent, even Toph.

Katara has never seen such a big smile on her brother’s face. It lights up the room, both of them radiating joy like the sun. Suki is somehow, impossibly, even more beautiful, her lipstick just a little bit smudged, her updo fallen out and hair curling around her face, and Katara is overwhelmed with happiness for them. Sometimes, as a child, after they’d lost their mom, she’d wondered if any of them would ever truly be happy again – but here they are, her dad laughing a few tables away with Bato and Gran-Gran and the rest of Katara’s family, Sokka and the best woman who would ever put up with him glowing with happiness.

And Katara, here, watching them, loving them. Nearly perfect.

“Is everything okay?”

Zuko asks it so quietly that Katara nearly misses it, but she tears her gaze away from Sokka and Suki to find him looking at her with a furrowed brow.

“Yes,” she says, and finds she almost means it.

She wasn’t planning on trying to catch the bouquet after dinner. Katara is uncoordinated at the best of times, and with everyone’s eyes on her, she doesn’t trust herself to fumble over everyone else for a handful of flowers. That is, until Ty Lee pulls her from her seat, practically bodying her to the dancefloor even as Katara protests. It _really_ isn’t fair how strong her gymnastics training has made her.

“You’re the maid of honor! You _have_ to be out there.”

“I don’t _have_ to be anywhere,” Katara answers, but she lets herself be dragged all the same.

She’s not even trying to catch it, she swears. It just kind of…flies over everyone else and lands in Katara’s arms.

Katara blinks, looking up at Suki, who’s now grinning devilishly over her shoulder at Katara. As Katara narrows her brows, Suki shrugs, feigning innocence.

She’s still staring down at the flowers in her hands in confusion when she hears Zuko say “nice catch.”

“I wasn’t even trying,” she answers. The music is starting up around them, and people are beginning to dance, swirling to the beat and pushing Katara closer to Zuko to avoid getting in their way. “What should I even do with this thing?”

Zuko takes the bouquet from her and lays it on the closest table, then offers Katara his hand, smiling crookedly. “Do you dance?”

“I mean, not well,” she answers, but she lets him sweep her into his arms anyway, one hand landing on the lapel of his jacket. He smells impossibly good – woodsy, but spicy, too, almost like cinnamon. His chest is solid beneath her palm.

“Me neither,” he laughs. “I’ll try if you do, though.”

They begin sweeping small circles around the room, picking up speed until the crowd is flying by and Katara is nearly dizzy, and she clings harder to Zuko’s hand to steady herself, laughing. It isn’t quite the right kind of song for a dance like this, but she’s enjoying being in Zuko’s arms, the self-assured way he’s holding her and leading her movements. She can feel her hair falling out of its bun, but she doesn’t stop to fix it, just spins faster.

When the song ends, they come to a standstill facing the entryway, and Katara feels the ground drop out from beneath her feet.

There’s a familiar figure leaning against the bar, a glass of whiskey dangling from one hand. He’s staring at her and Zuko with hooded eyes. His lips are twisted into a frown.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” Katara mutters.

“What?” Zuko stops moving entirely, his eyes searching Katara’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“My ex is here,” she grits out.

It’s impossible – except it’s totally not. Katara had never actually rescinded Jet’s invitation. She’d assumed it would be obvious, what with the screaming at him to get out of their apartment and the blocking him on all forms of social media, but apparently he’s just that malicious or that goddamn dense.

“Where?” Zuko spins around, but Katara grabs his arms, stopping him.

“Don’t look! I don’t want him to know I saw him.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see that Jet is still watching them, leaning forward slightly. It’s the first time she’s seen him since she broke up with him, Katara realizes. As she watches, he starts toward them. His pace is leisurely, but he walks with purpose, cutting a clear path through the dancefloor, and then his eyes lock with hers’.

An idea forms in her head.

“I’m going to ask you something crazy and possibly offensive,” she tells Zuko, wondering even as she does so if she’s making a massive mistake. “If you don’t want to do it, just pretend I never said it.”

“Okay,” Zuko says slowly.

“Can you kiss me?”

She watches him gulp, his throat bobbing under his loosened collar. He leans back, and Katara is sure he’s not going to do it; _of course not_ , she thinks, _he’s still practically a stranger,_ and she’s ready to retreat to the bathroom in shame and not come out until everyone else is gone—except then, all of a sudden, Zuko’s mouth is warm on hers.

She’s so surprised that she stumbles off balance, reaching out toward him to steady herself even as she closes her eyes, deepening the kiss. Her palms land on his suit lapels, pulling him closer, and his encircle her waist. He’s taking this very seriously, Katara thinks. Way more seriously than he needs to, and she absolutely doesn’t mind a bit.

By the time he pulls back, Katara is out of breath. Her vision has gone a bit blurry, and she’s sure it’s not from all the champagne.

“Oh,” she mumbles. “Thank you.”

Zuko looks dazed as he nods.

Behind him, Katara sneaks a glance at the bar, just in time to see Jet’s broad back receding out of the room.

A wave of relief washes over her, and she sags into Zuko. He loops an arm around her waist. “He’s gone now,” Katara murmurs, and Zuko smiles, tightening his fingers at her hip.

“Glad I could be of assistance.” Then he frowns. “You look a little flushed. Do you want to get some air?”

Katara nods fervently. “Yes. I would really, really appreciate that.”

On the way out, she snags her wineglass from their table and downs the whole thing, grateful for anything to cool her parched throat and her nerves. The only person still sitting at the table is Toph, with her feet kicked up on the chair next to her, heels off and arms crossed. She arches one eyebrow at Katara.

“What?” Katara says. “You can’t even see what I’m drinking.”

“You better be careful,” Toph responds.

But Katara’s tired of being careful. She’s been nothing but careful for weeks. If nothing else, she’s allowed this one night of recklessness.

When they emerge onto the patio, night has fully fallen, and the stars are shining brighter than Katara’s ever seen them in the city. The first breath of cool air courses through her, electrifying, and she tips her head back, staring up.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Zuko says behind her.

She nods without looking away. “I never realized how little I got to see the stars before this.”

“Are you okay with what happened in there?”

He sits down on the steps, his legs akimbo, and Katara only hesitates slightly before sinking down next to him.

“I think so.” She ponders it, still watching the stars, tracing constellations she remembers Sokka pointing out to her when they were children in their big backyard: Orion, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia. Then she says, “I don’t know, actually.”

Zuko doesn’t say anything, waiting for her to go on, so Katara does.

“That was the first time I saw him since I kicked him out of our – out of _my_ apartment. He left his phone at home when he went to the gym, and I’m not a nosy person – I swear I’m not – but the texts just popped up on it, and I couldn’t _not_ read them, they were right there. And we never had a chance to talk about it, really. Not that I want to, but still, it just makes me wonder, you know? What was it about me that wasn’t enough for him?”

She doesn’t realize she’s tearing up until the first one slides down her cheek. She brushes it away angrily with the back of her hand. Jet doesn’t get any more of her tears, she’d promised herself when it happened, but all of the day’s heightened emotions are warring inside her and it’s all too much.

A heartbeat, and then she feels something warm drape across her shoulders, engulfing her in a scent like woodsmoke and cinnamon. She burrows into the warmth of Zuko’s jacket gratefully.

“He sounds like a jerk, Katara,” says Zuko. “And I know we’ve only just met, but I think I’m not wrong when I say it wasn’t you. It sounds like he’s the one who screwed up, and you deserve someone way better than that.”

“Someone like you?”

Katara blurts the words out before she can even think. All the champagne has loosened her tongue, and the way he’s looking at her now, all intense and sincere and _caring_ – it’s just too much, his jacket around her shoulders, his hand in hers’ as they danced, his lips soft on hers as Jet watched. It’s all too much and she wants to kiss him again so badly she thinks she might explode.

So she does. She leans forward slowly, watching Zuko to see if he’ll pull back, but he doesn’t; at the last moment, he leans into it, blinking the shock out of his eyes just before Katara’s lips meet his again.

It’s gentler this time, agonizingly so. Zuko is hesitant at first, letting her take the lead; he kisses her languidly, almost reverently. One of his hands falls to Katara’s thigh, his palm hot through the layers of silk, and Katara shivers, even though she isn’t remotely cold. It snaps something within her; she scrabbles for Zuko, her fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of his neck.

Then he’s not there anymore, and Katara lets a whine of disappointment slip out. Zuko chuckles, a low sound that shoots straight down Katara’s spine and into the pit of her belly, pooling there, molten.

“You’re a little drunk,” he says.

“I am.”

With gentle fingers, he brushes the hair back from Katara’s forehead, tucking it behind one ear. “I want to try that again when you’re sober,” he murmurs.

 _When you’re sober_. Another night, then, with Zuko, more golden eyes and deep laughter. He wants to see Katara again. He wants to try _this_ again.

“Oh,” Katara says, still a little breathless. “Yes. Definitely.”

“Should we get back inside?”

She shakes her head. “One more minute.”

She leans back against Zuko’s knees. To her surprise, he responds, spreading his legs so she can lean against his chest and wrapping one arm around her shoulders protectively.

“Did I really only meet you today?”

“It feels longer, doesn’t it?” Zuko answers. “I guess that’s what weddings will do to you.”

“Thank you for everything in there, by the way.” She waves her hand at the ballroom, soft light spilling from the windows out onto the grass beside them in geometric shapes. “The whole fake-boyfriend thing. You were a real trooper.”

“Yeah, kissing you took a lot of sacrifice.”

“Hopefully I can make it up to you, then.”

“I’m sure we could work something out,” Zuko says. His arm tightens around her shoulders. Katara laughs, and she feels free, and something more than that – she feels hopeful.

“Yes,” she affirms. “I’m sure we will.”

**Author's Note:**

> this only like....very loosely fits the prompt lol. i guess i was thinking like weddings = "i do" = an affirmation?? BUT it won the tumblr poll i did and was incredibly fun to write, even if it rotted a couple of my teeth out from the fluffiness :')


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